Primary Source Analysis Paper

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History Paper

10 May 2015.

Nazism in Germany

This paper compares and contrasts the views of two authors regarding Nazism in Germany. The first author is Paul Preston, whose work explores European politics between 1914 and 1945. The second is Marvin Perry, whose book provides a detailed historical analysis of the Western tradition from the renaissance era to the present day. I then present my perspectives on the contrasts and similarities portrayed in these authors’ arguments.

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In terms of similarities, both authors agree that the fledgling Weimar Republic was at the heart of Europe’s political developments during the early twentieth century that culminated in Nazism in Germany. Both of them view the collapse of this republic as the precursor to a series of political developments in Germany that led to the rise of Nazism. According to Preston, Hitler rose to power after his party, the Social Democratic Party defeated the incumbent political rivals to form a new administration that morphed into a dictatorship within a year (165).

On his part, Perry adds that the government that Hitler toppled also had its own shortcomings because it operated as a semi-authoritarian monarchy (353). He also points out that Nazism emerged as part of efforts by conservative, radical rightist leaders to use twisted logic to blame the Weimer Republic for the country’s defeat in the First World War (Perry 353). Moreover, the two authors agree that during the first half of the twentieth century, the Western civilization was in crisis, and one of the manifestations of this crisis was the belligerence that Germany exercised through Nazism.

In terms of differences, Preston attributes the political failures that led to the rise of Nazism in Germany to failure on the part of the country’s leftist politicians (159). In contrast, Perry argues that the totalitarianism that characterized the European political landscape may be attributed to failure by rightist politicians to promote constructive nationalist ideals. (349). Perry even draws parallels with Italian Fascism, where Mussolini’s efforts to take advantage of citizens’ fear of communism to mobilize people for a rebellion demonstrated the political elite’s preference for a cult of personality over constructive nationalist ideals (349).  

In another argument, Perry provides a highlight of the atrocities that were committed by Nazis in Germany (374). Examples of these atrocities include depriving Jews of German citizenship, preventing Jewish professions from working in Germany, forbidding of sexual relations between Jews and Germans, throwing Jews in concentration camps, and ultimately persecuting them (Perry 374). In other words, Perry seems to promote the idea of the unprecedented nature of Hitler’s behavior that ultimately led to the rise of Nazism (353). In contrast, Preston promotes the idea that Germany’s leftist leaders should have deciphered a trend whereby rightist proponents of Nazism under Hitler’s leadership were keenly avoiding all preventive wars that could have stopped Hitler’s ambitions and taken appropriate remedial measures.

            In my view, the two sources provide largely similar accounts of Nazism in Germany. For instance, they provide strikingly similar details regarding the collapse of the Weimer Republic and the subsequent rise of Nazism. However, the authors seem to differ on the issue of the role that the German political left should have played to avoid the rise of Hitler’s authoritarian rule and the resulting emergence of Nazism. I think it is true that the leftist politicians should have done more to stop Hitler and his retinue of radical conservatives from entrenching Nazism within the country’s administrative system and military ranks.

Works Cited

Perry, Marvin. Sources of the Western Tradition: Volume II: From the Renaissance to the Present. Boston: Wadsworth, 2014. Print.

Preston, Paul. “The Great Civil War: European Politics, 1914-1945.” In T Blanning. The Oxford Illustrated History of Modern Europe. 154-181. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. Print.